Why is Harper content to let CSIS keep him in the dark?

When it comes to strengthening what passes for oversight of Canada’s spy service, Stephen Harper doesn’t listen to his critics. Maybe he’ll start listening to his friends.

Earlier this week, I spoke at length with a former senior government official who not only spent decades deep inside the Canadian spy biz, he also worked closely with, and remains a political ally of, the prime minister.

This former official — who agreed to be quoted only on condition of anonymity — is an experienced hand in the netherworld of intelligence. Academics, journalists and politicians of all political stripes — including, no doubt, Harper himself — would all attest to his ability to navigate the tricky bureaucratic terrain where politics and espionage meet.

So when a universally respected ex-official — someone who helped Harper settle into office when he first arrived in Ottawa — suggests that the sweeping powers the Canadian Security Intelligence Service will get under Bill C-51 demand stronger mechanisms to keep our spies in check, the prime minister can’t blow it off. He can ignore it at his peril, but he has to acknowledge he’s the only one left in the know who thinks CSIS can be trusted with these new powers without someone looking over its shoulder.

My source began by questioning Harper’s “surprising” decision in 2012 to shut down the Inspector General’s Office — ostensibly the Public Safety minister’s eyes and ears inside CSIS.

“I found it puzzling. It’s cheap. There were a little group of people that were keeping an eye on what was going on, trying to see what was coming down the railroad that might be troublesome … and able to persuade CSIS not to go there. I thought it a very useful position to have. I didn’t understand it. It took me completely by surprise.”

The official noted that, despite its anemic resources — a paltry $1 million budget and a staff of eight — the IG’s office played a key role in making sure the government didn’t get blindsided by CSIS.

“The IG’s mandate was to make sure that if anything was going wrong with CSIS … he or she would keep the minister up to date and give he or she a heads-up that something should be done about that.”

Indeed, IGs like Maurice Archdeacon, David Peel and Eva Plunkett did such a good job of warning ministers of potential problems that senior CSIS officials complained loudly, sometimes publicly, that they were a pain in the ass.

Peel told me in an interview for my book about CSIS that the spy service’s then-director, Ward Elcock, was so infuriated by his prying that he actually refused to speak with him. He left that chore to his right-hand man, Jim Corcoran, widely known inside CSIS as ‘Mr. Fix-It’.

An unelected CSIS director kept an elected cabinet minister in the dark about what the spy service was up to. And the office that raised the alarm no longer exists — courtesy of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“There is this sense that they (CSIS) can get away with things … they were not open in a way they should be to scrutiny,” Peel told me. (The distinguished former diplomat died in 2009.)

Incredibly, Peel also revealed that Elcock failed to keep the minister responsible for CSIS informed about what CSIS was up to, despite written instructions to do so.

“Part of my problem with (Elcock) was that I didn’t think that he was keeping the minister well enough informed about issues and problems and what the service was doing where the minister had, in general terms, given directives that he wanted to be kept informed about such things,” Peel said.

Think about that: An unelected CSIS director kept an elected cabinet minister in the dark about what the spy service was up to. And the office that raised the alarm no longer exists — courtesy of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Giving CSIS fresh powers in the absence of real, robust oversight effectively gives the spy service free rein to do what it wants, to anyone, whenever it wants.

Politicians can’t get in front of scandals if they don’t see them coming. Our anonymous official, for one, thinks that it would be smart of Harper to consider re-opening the IG’s office. “I think that a lot of people might find that a pretty good idea …

“You need to have someone who is capable of dealing with everybody, being honest and truthful and sometimes a bit hard-nosed, and yet do it in a way that won’t antagonize everyone that they wouldn’t cooperate. I’m sure that there are people all over the place that could do a good job.”

He also suggested that Harper revisit a proposal made during the Chretien administration to grant MPs and senators on the national security subcommittee top-secret security clearance, allowing them to be briefed by the Security Intelligence Review Committee — the spy service’s current, and wholly inadequate, oversight mechanism — on sensitive intelligence matters.

“You would have had SIRC reporting classified material to a Parliamentary committee. That would have worked.”

That proposal, the official said, was apparently rejected (wisely, I believe) by several MPs and senators — including Progressive Conservative members — who were pushing for full parliamentary oversight of CSIS, complete with the experienced staff and healthy budget that would put Canada’s oversight on par (on paper, at least) with congressional oversight of the vast U.S. intelligence infrastructure.

“I think they were asking for too much. But they were saying that they weren’t going to go along with some half-assed system.”

The big hurdle facing parliamentarians who support establishing parliamentary oversight of CSIS, the official added, is that the spy service has convinced successive Liberal and Conservative governments to dismiss the idea as untenable.

The official suggested that, since the Harper government clearly has no appetite for full-fledged parliamentary oversight, giving parliamentarians top-secret security clearance and SIRC briefings might be a workable compromise.

But SIRC, he said, should get more people and money to do its job. “SIRC needs to put in a Treasury Board submission for more resources … I think it would be ideal for SIRC to report to a committee of the House of Commons and Senate which would be able to accept very sensitive information about what was going on so that Parliament itself had an eye on what was going on, which it does not have at the moment.”

Harper is giving much wider powers to an intelligence service with a bad habit of keeping ministers of the Crown out of the loop. There’s still time for him to heed the advice of people who’ve seen this movie before. I doubt he will.

Andrew Mitrovica is a writer and journalism instructor. For much of his career, Andrew was an investigative reporter for a variety of news organizations and publications including the CBC’s fifth estate, CTV’s W5, CTV National News — where he was the network’s chief investigative producer — the Walrus magazine and the Globe and Mail, where he was a member of the newspaper’s investigative unit. During the course of his 23-year career, Andrew has won numerous national and international awards for his investigative work.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

26 comments on “Why is Harper content to let CSIS keep him in the dark?”

It seems to be the way of people, if they are decent and sensible, they can’t in the end truly understand others that aren’t. Harper doesn’t believe in anything, over time he has shown a sociopath’s indifference to ‘getting it right based on well researched fact’. He prefers to manipulate people and things to some motivated scenario that furthers his own altering agenda for power and inclusion, with the ‘players’ now on the world stage. Fleeting times ahead, as anyone would tell him, but to no avail, he will make his own mess and stay stuck in it. Better to pick a man with a decent respect for achieving the best, of any scenarios outcome, than one playing only for himself. I mean compare Harper to Mr Peter Lougheed, now there’s a measurable difference, that stands the test of time and circumstance.

I would also like to add though, that partisan comments about ethical issues are totally irrelevant, IMHO. We have tolerated, and therefore tacitly condoned, Canadian politicians who are not honest with the public … whether by commission of lies or by serious omissions of the truth. It’s not a question of WHO has been unacceptably dishonest … the real point is that as a common/tolerated political practice, this simply has to stop. It’s profoundly undemocratic.

Could not agree more, such lies have taken Vets to war in Iraq now several times and yet our cowardly media heel to their corporate bosses in refusing to demand any kind of proof behind our leaders accusations, or hyped claims of terrorism, or insults against superpower leaders without context or substance. In the past democracy was demonstrated,— not referred to as a pretext for appearing to caring about foreign civilians. —
-As it turned out our leaders and others simply used these emotive terms as a phoney means of justifying invasions based a hidden agenda. As the body count of civilians mounts, comments are as hard to track as are the monies promised to help these same civilians.
My center cringes, as the reports came back showing tent cities with families living as those they were prisoners, not refugees in crisis. I am ashamed of Obama and Harper, these two have demonstrated a total and real indifference to the cost to innocent people caught in these ever-increasing conflicts, where leaders zeal to impress bankers and corporations gaming the status quo in order to have Vets and taxpayers such as us and Americans pay for acquiring resource control and strategic markets, —-no matter what!

Stephen Harper is the type of evil Christian conservative who is confident His god will accept liars in heaven. The lies have to be good for Stephen Harper’s god and HisChristian and Missionary Alliance Church and like minded Churches.

A good leader operating in complexity needs in his organization clear channels from anywhere. Channels free of knowledge distortions introduced by self interest and fear. Stephen Harper, on the other hand, uses fear and self interest as if they are the best thing since sliced bread, circa 19X0.

Stephen Harper does what he does because he can count on servile and obedient people like your Conservative “anonymous source”, who couldn’t bear the thought of putting his name to his criticism about actions that he knows intellectually are wrong, and Stephen Harper knows full well that he can count on people like him to keep their objections to the things he does private in the name of cowardly and craven loyalty to The Leader, rather than make their objections public and make themselves heard.

If Harper reads my piece carefully I’m sure he will be able to identify who I spoke to. I hardly think that makes my source “craven” or a “coward.” Sometimes, it’s just the nature of the journalism business that sources prefer to speak on condition of anonymity. It’s a long standing tradition. Still, thanks for reading and commenting on the piece. Please keep reading iPolitics.

Hi Andrew
Just a thought and meant with only the kindest of intentions.
Kalin is perhaps echoing the very deep frustration millions of us have about the obscene
level of secrecy and stealth we’ve had to endure under this regime.
There’s never been anything so oppressive and so utterly undemocratic and it’s truly
shaken the souls of many.
You and Michael Harris are about the only two journalists in the entire country who are speaking the truth!
Canadians are not stupid and we’re sure not apathetic but we’ve had to do our own research to get some semblance of truth to what the Hell is going on in this beautiful land.
For years now, I have been begging the press to do their jobs and reveal the very staggering
powers of the Koch brothers in this country.
CBC won’t whisper their name!
When I say millions of us, I mean millions! We’ve read Party of One and taken it into our hearts
with all the sorrow it brings and we’re determined to kick this government to the curb.
But, by God, it’s very hard sometimes to keep our resolve when the entire press is hell bent to
dupe us and continue their foolish cult like following of Harper.
It is stunning to citizens that Harper has been allowed to hide his financial underpinnings!!!
Can anyone imagine for a New York minute if Trudeau were to be so secretive?? Of course not.
I’m waiting for someone to dig and dig deep into the truth behind Harper’s money trail.
We deserve it big time.
Thanks for listening to my “Mercer’ rant!
Best regards,
jc

Thanks for the kind words. I understand and share your frustration. I suppose I’m lucky that I can express that angst in my columns. Please keep reading, sharing and commenting on the pieces….pro or con, it’s irrelevant. The point of columns like this is tr provoke an informed debate…hopefully. All the best. Andrew

That’s fine, we disagree. I think it does make him pretty meek and servile. Certainly there’s no evidence to suggest that Stephen Harper “can’t blow off” someone who speaks as an anonymous source because they went to a writer for iPolitics, and is going to feel like he has to change what he’s doing because of it. When he rams through his C-51 bill despite your source’s nameless protests, we’ll know for sure.

Maybe before, but not now after the many instances of how Harper is not in fact, doing the day to day work, done by any PM. So far, we Have the Ontario leader, so disgusted that she has to air, the fact that Harper refuses to do his job, by even meeting and working with the Provinces (for over a year).
Then we have a meeting where the entire assembly of Premieres are making the exact accusation—
Finally, we have a demand for any kind of direction on infrastructure projects, from Harper and the cons —-totally ignored, for some time.
In fact enough time that the representative went on CBC News to complain how ignored infrastructure was as an important economic necessity.

Many in the land are frustrated by harper’s tyranny- he is an enigma to most citizens as he seems to be irrational in the way he “governs.’And the budget just re-enforces that in the minds of many. I would like to know just what makes this man tick.

I’m willing to bet a small amount that Andrew does not think that well-reasoned and respectful suggestions will go very far with this leader. Instead, this piece reminds US that no matter who it is, no matter what they say, the leader has a simple agenda of using his base to make this country as regressive as it was in 1812.

As Robert Kaplan was the Solicitor General of Canada from 1980 to 1984, he created CSIS. Unbeknownst to him and parliament, the RCMP/CSIS were [had been for 33 years…] overseeing a little project called ‘ PROFUNC ‘. It was a clandestine project to identify and track in great detail, ‘ prominent functionary’s ‘ associated with socialist/communist ‘activities or personal associations. The idea, that with a coordinated signal, the RCMP/local police would round up everyone [tens of thousands) and sequester them in predesignated complexes…

Just as McCarthyism was dead by the mid-1950s, Canadians started PROFUNC, lasting from 1950 to 1983.

In 1983, after a number of Canadians, complained of harassment when crossing international borders, Kaplan ordered CSIS and the RCMP to cease any and all activities in this regard.

Incredibly, as a direct result, UNKNOWN to him, Parliament, the Prime Minister and all Canadians, PROFUNC was now dead.

Our elected officials had absolutely no idea that the program even existed ???

This, is a prime lesson as to why C-51 should be scrapped, period. Our security state has entirely, presently, all the ‘tools’ it requires, having secured a judicial warrant, FIRST, to investigate criminal/terrorist activities.

a. just as the Americans were trashing McCarthyism, we Canadians were silently starting our own version of it.
b. just as the Americans are realizing ‘tough on crime’ does not work, we’re are ramping it up.
c. just as the Americans are finally admitting torture [still] does not work, we Canadians (Harper) prorogued parliament to cover up our complicit involvement, knowing that we were handing ‘detainees’ over to be tortured.
d. just as the Americans are now severely questioning the surveillance state, Harper (C-51) is ramping ours up.

My family and I started warning people about Harper’s brutal secret police agency over 6 years ago and Harper’s government murdered our 2 daughters and the Kathy Liknes family and tried to murder the rest of our family over the fraudulent 30-08 warrants against us.

If anyone knows of a good lawyer so we can keep the rest of our family alive please get ahold of us. You can contact us on our website. Thanks

My family and I have been dealing with the Harper governments ACCESS TO INFORMATION system for 2 years now trying to get our 30-08 warrant information so we can sue the Harper government for torturing and murdering our family and we are still waiting for them to help us.

We were told our requests need our signatures, birth dates, and social insurance numbers. We send in the FOI request forms with a sample of our hand writing, multiple samples of our signatures, our birthdates, copies of our birth certificates and copies of our social insurance cards.

My wife and I finally got our second reply back from our RCMP freedom of information requests that we sent them to get our 30-08 warrant information and the investigation information that our daughters were working on before they were murdered. My wifes reply from the RCMP was that they needed to know what RCMP detachment has her information so they can find it and my reply from the RCMP was that they needed to know my birthdate before they can find my information. We are being stonewalled by the RCMP from getting our information.

My wife and I just got our reply back from CSEC. They need to know from us what section of CSEC is holding our 30-08 warrant information so they can find it. They don’t know what section of CSEC holds terror investigation information. What are we suppose to say to that? How are we suppose to get our 30-08 warrant information and have a proper investigation done for the torture and murder of our family for the last 6 years? Who is going to help us?

CSIS are not even replying back to us and SIRC should of got back to us already but they just tabled a letter in Parliament on March 31st stating they can not properly investigate CSIS.

These are the type of games every government agency we have applied to to get our 30-08 warrant information through the freedom of information system has been playing with us for over a year now. Information Minister Suzanne Legault, The Justice Department Of Canada, The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, AD-HOC Privacy Commissioner John Sims, The Justice Department Of BC, The Privacy Commissioner Of BC, The Law Society Of BC, CSIS, SIRC, CSEC, RCMP have all been playing games with us.

UPDATED:

We just got our reply back from SIRC wednesday ,we asked them to investigate CSIS to help us get our information because CSIS won’t even reply back to us. SIRC’s reply to us was “SIRC does not have any information on you and if you are not satisfied with our answer you can complain to The Privacy Commissioner of Canada.” SIRC won’t even investigate CSIS for us over the torture and murder of our daughters. We are thinking of starting a blog and posting all the documentation we have gotten from the Harper government agencies to show everyone the run around they have been giving us since 2013 trying to get our 30-08 warrant information. Thanks

(Harper couldn’t care less what the CSIS does; as long as they spy on
business competitors for his 1% business friends —> in exchange for
Mr. Businessman making large donations to the Conservative Party).